Impacts of workplace automation on energy poverty: The new challenge of achieving SDG 7 in the context of technological revolution
发布日期：2024-01-29
阅读次数：
摘要：This paper systematically examines how workplace automation impacts energy poverty from ademand-side perspective, revealing a new challenge for Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) in the context of technological revolution. Our research demonstrates that workplace automation significantly increases household energy poverty. This finding is robust when using the instrumental variable approach to tackle endogeneity, as well as employing different automation and energy poverty measures, placebo tests, and machine learning methods for robustness checks. Automation’s impact mechanism is that it reduces people’s income and work-related social capital, thus exposing households to higher risks of energy poverty. Moreover, its consequences are more prominent for rural households, less educated people, non-migrants, those without labor contracts, non trade-union members, and out-of-system workers. Thus enhancing human capital, promoting free movement of workers, and providing better labor protection contribute to weakening the adverse impact of the technological shock. Meanwhile, we find that improving the price reasonability, stability, security and accessibility of energy supply can also mitigate the negative effects of workplace automation on household energy consumption. In the dual context of the fourth technological revolution promoting industrial automation as well as the increasing urgency to achieve SDG 7, findings of this paper have important policy implications.
摘要中译：本文从需求侧视角系统考察了工作自动化如何影响了能源贫困，揭示出技术变革背景下SDG 7面临的新挑战。研究结果表明，工作自动化显著提高了家庭能源贫困程度。这一结论在利用工具变量法处理内生性，使用不同自动化与能源贫困指标，安慰剂检验，机器学习方法进行稳健性检验时均稳健。影响机制在于，工作自动化降低了家庭收入和与工作相关的社会资本，使得家庭面临更大的能源贫困风险。此外，自动化对城镇家庭、高学历群体、移民、有劳动合同者、工会会员、体制内劳动者的能源贫困程度影响更小。这意味着增加人力资本投资、促进劳动者自由流动以及提供更好的劳动保护均有助于弱化自动化技术的不利冲击。同时，研究发现提高能源供给的价格合理性、稳定性、安全性与便利性均有助于弱化工作自动化对家庭能源使用带来的不利影响。在当前以人工智能为先导的第四次科技革命推动产业自动化转型，同时全球能源贫困问题依然严峻的双重背景下，本文研究结果具有重要的政策意义。
作者：牛晓茹，李超，李香，张雨涵
文章来源：Heliyon 10 (2024) e25087
当前位置：
